December 1941 (24 page)

Captain Dickinson S. Pepper of Walter Reed Hospital berated young doctors who, while in medical school, received deferments and were then “shirking” their duty. “I cannot believe that the medical student of today appreciates the crisis that confronts our Nation,” he said.
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The nation's women were not shirking. In full-page ads, Revlon Nail Enamel and the Beauty Salons of America featured actress Joan Crawford doing her bit for the war effort. “Morale is a woman's business. The way you look affects so many people around you. . . . To them, a woman's beauty stands for courage, serenity, a gallant heart . . . all the things that men need so desperately these days. So the time spent in your favorite beauty salon every week isn't selfish or frivolous. It's part of your job of morale.”
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At 3:42 a.m., the Condor, on patrol outside the entrance to Pearl Harbor, spotted an unidentified and unauthorized midget submarine. Later that morning at 6:45 a.m. the Ward fired on and hit yet another mysterious midget submarine. The young captain with the perfectly nautical name of William Outerbridge ordered his number three deck gun to fire on the unknown submarine. Outerbridge reported, “We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges on sub operating in our defensive zone.”
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A report was made to naval authorities at Pearl, but no action was taken.

Scout planes from the Enterprise, some two hundred miles out and heading back to Pearl after making her delivery, spotted Japanese bombers and escort planes over the Pacific at 6:15 a.m., heading southeast. Radio confusion between a scout plane and the “Big E” prevented it from taking any action.
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Adm. Bill Halsey and his aircraft carrier had been due back at Pearl Harbor the morning of December 7, but a storm had waylaid them, and they would now not arrive until the afternoon.

At St. Agnes Episcopal Church in Washington, sitting in a pew alone and deep in prayer was Viscount Halifax, the British ambassador to the United States. As “Father DuBois reached that part of the service where he prayed ‘for guidance for all Christian rulers,' Viscount Halifax was visibly and deeply moved.”
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In the predawn of December 7, the first wave of planes from six aircraft carriers had become airborne and headed for the island of Oahu. Their code several days before if diplomacy failed was “Climb Mt. Niitaka.”

At Opana Point Radar Station, set on the highest point on the island of Oahu, two young army privates, Joseph L. Lockard and George Elliot, noticed what looked to be a huge grouping of planes headed for the island. A call was placed around 7:00 a.m. to Lt. Kermit Tyler, who was the morning duty officer, informing him of “many planes.” Tyler, thinking the two were seeing a squadron of American B-17s due in that morning, told them to forget about it. They turned off the radar and went to breakfast. An earlier radar “blip” had also been ignored.
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A private pilot was up for a quiet and leisurely flight over Honolulu early that morning. Ray Buduick, a lawyer, expected to have the airspace all to himself and his seventeen-year-old son, Martin.
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Shortly after takeoff, he realized that his expectations were wrong. All of a sudden, the skies over the island were filled with hundreds of airplanes. “A private plane owner reported he was given a salute of machine-gun bullets by the Japanese planes. His craft was damaged but he managed to land.”
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A female flight instructor, Cornelia Fort, in her early 20s, was also aloft, giving a lesson, when she was overwhelmed with hundreds of planes bearing a red flaming ball.

A squadron of Japanese fighter planes, being faster than the bombers, arrived at Oahu at 7:30 and orbited the island for twenty-five minutes while they waited for the slower planes to catch up.
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On a beach in Santa Monica, a group of sun worshipers was out early playing volleyball when one of them heard something over the radio and tried to catch the attention of the others who were disinterested at the moment in anything other than the outcome of their morning match.
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The first wave of 183 planes, including dive bombers and torpedo planes on approach to Oahu, continued unmolested and basically undetected. They'd been transported in secret since November 26, at 0900, having departed their home waters of Tankan Bay. The six carriers,
Akagi
,
Kaga
,
Soryu
,
Hiryu
,
Shokaku
, and
Zuikaku
could deploy hundreds of war planes. They were under the orders of the fleet commander, Isoroku Yamamoto, and the command of Chuichi Nagumo. The massive fleet halted in mid-ocean to refuel on December 3. The standing order was radio silence and, if not recalled by Tokyo, to attack.

As they flew over the island, on their approach from the north, over the sugarcane and pineapple fields, they saw no puffs of antiaircraft black smoke in the sky, no airplanes rising to meet their challenge. Realizing they had succeeded in their audacious sneak attack on the American fleet, the code indicating their achievement was transmitted: “Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”
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“Tora! Tora! Tora!”

Along the Waikiki beach, some early morning fishermen were out. “Downtown nothing stirred save an occasional bus.” Then came the Japanese planes. “They whined over Waikiki, over the candy pink bulk of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.”
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A commercial liner just making port from San Francisco slipped into the harbor at Honolulu. Thinking themselves lucky to be witnessing naval war games, what with the planes diving overhead and all the puffs of black and white smoke, “[s]cores of delighted passengers crowding the deck remarked that it was mighty fine of the United States Navy, timing it so nicely with [their] arrival.”
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Initial reports out of Hawaii were light. The first bulletin went out over the local airwaves, garbled, not from a military source or official government spokesman, but from a broadcast personality, Webley Edwards, who hosted the popular radio show
Hawaii Calls
on CBS, which was heard all over the mainland.
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“Attention. This is no exercise. The Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor. All Army, Navy and Marine personnel are to report to duty.”
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Shortly thereafter, a government-ordered blackout was secured on Hawaii, but long-distance phone calls, telegrams, or messages from ham radio operators continued.
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The phone lines eventually became jammed as the navy was frantically using them.

But this didn't stop anybody from hearing about the attack all across the mainland. It went out over the airwaves, repeatedly, with regular programming interrupted, on every radio station in America. News spread by word of mouth, from neighbor to neighbor, parents to kids. The words
Pearl Harbor
were questioningly and angrily on everybody's lips. In the living rooms of America, people huddled around Philco or General Electric radios, listening to war news that for the first time directly involved the American people. On the sidewalks, people huddled around car radios, listening to the flash bulletins.
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The headlines of the morning newspapers of December 7, 1941, contained no news about the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor as they had gone to bed hours before the attack. Plus, there was a five-and-a-half-hour difference between the East Coast and Hawaii. But by that afternoon, hurriedly rushed “Extra!” editions of newspapers were printed in large-point type by the droves, nationwide.

At the meaningless football game at Griffith Stadium in Washington between the Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles, twenty-seven thousand attendees—including many military personnel and journalists—“were the last to know anything about the world-stirring events.”
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Throughout the game there was no announcement whatsoever through the loudspeakers, although radio broadcasters in the booths continually were breaking into their accounts of the game with war bulletins. Listening on the radio, fans heard, “Japs bombed Pearl Harbor—Japs make direct hit, killing hundreds.” People in the bleachers heard none of this. The famed sports reporter Shirley Povich of the
Washington Post
recalled that a colleague had received a private message from his newspaper. “The Japanese have kicked off. War now!”
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In the interval after the first half, it became evident to the football fans that something extraordinary was in progress. Throughout the intermission and the second half there were constant calls over the public address system for various newspapermen, believed to be at the game, to get in touch with their offices immediately and for high-ranking army and navy officers to call their departments. “Important persons were being paged, too many important persons to make it a coincidence.” In the first half, the chief of the Bureau of Ordnance with the navy was paged. So, too, was a high official with the Philippine government. Of the flock of cameramen there to cover the game, by the second half only one lone photographer stood vigil, the others sent to the Japanese embassy and others now to more interesting and important locations.
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As the rumor of war spread, the seats emptied. One enterprising wife sent her husband, who was attending the game, a telegram. “Deliver to Section P, Top Row, Seat 27, opposite 25-yard line, East side, Griffith Stadium: War with Japan Get to office.” The Redskins ownership later said using the PA to announce the war news was against its management's policy.
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It was reported initially that the Japanese had struck at 7:35 Hawaiian time, 1:05 (EST).
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According to
A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy
, the time was 7:55 a.m., local time.
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Because Hawaii had gone into a news broadcasting blackout, it is likely that there were many in the scattered Hawaiian Islands who did not know about the attack until nearly everybody in the world knew about it.

In all, some 353 Japanese fighters and bombers descended on Oahu, more than 3,500 miles from their homeland.
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“An NBC broadcast said Japanese planes—estimated as high as 150 in the opening assault—struck at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor.”
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Initial reports said the planes appeared over the harbor out of the south coming over Diamond Head. Civilian locations were also bombed and strafed. One of the first to die in the attack may have been a ten-year-old Portuguese girl.
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A reporter for the International News Service, Richard Haller, filed this report:

Japanese warplanes brought sudden death and undisclosed destruction to the beautiful Hawaiian Islands in their sudden raid this morning. A flotilla of planes bearing the Rising Sun of Japan on their wingtips appeared out of the south while most of the city was sleeping. The planes dove immediately to the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hickam field, the giant air base lying nearby. . . . Three battleships were struck as they lay at anchor in the naval base. One . . . was reportedly set afire. Another . . . we hear has been sunk along with another warship. There was no confirmation of the sinkings by officers of the Fourteenth naval district. . . . I wasn't able to confirm reports that Japanese paratroopers had landed. But the report spread through Honolulu like wild fire. There were rumors that a number of prisoners were taken. From the rooftop of The Honolulu Advertiser building I saw a thick pall of smoke rising from the Pearl Harbor and Hickam field areas. Three separate fires were raging there. A staggering series of explosions came shortly after 10 o'clock when the attack was already two hours old. Army authorities later reported that a direct torpedo bomb hit had been made on the Hickam field barracks. The army said it was feared that 350 men had been killed. A few minutes later the Japanese planes, flying at an immense altitude returned over Honolulu. . . . Waikiki, the world famous resort beach, was also subjected to sudden attack as the raiders tried to silence the big guns of Fort DeRussy, guarding the entrance to Honolulu Harbor. . . . The raiders fantailed over the residential districts and dropped what appeared to be incendiary bombs over Pacific Heights and Dowsett highlands. Some fires were ignited.
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Associated Press reporters in New York could clearly hear over the phone the bombing in the background, as an unidentified local NBC reporter standing on the roof of a building, microphone in hand, “radioed direct from the scene.” He noted that although two local broadcast stations had reported on the raid, local citizens did not heed the warning to take cover until the sound of bombs was heard.
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Some did not go home but instead to the hills over the harbor, to get a good look at the ensuing battle.
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The reporter from the local NBC affiliate then said, “We have witnessed this morning the attack of Pearl Harbor and a severe bombing of Pearl Harbor by army planes, undoubtedly Japanese. The city of Honolulu has also been attacked and considerable damage done. This battle has been going on for nearly three hours. One of the bombs dropped within fifty feet of the KGU tower. . . . It is no joke; it is a real war,” he said, before his connection died.
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A few minutes later he began broadcasting again. “We have no statement as to how much damage has been done, but it has been a very severe attack. The army and navy, it appears, now have the air and sea under control.” Then his line went dead, this time for good.
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John Daly of CBS also broadcast early reports from the scene for a time.
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